Reader Letter | Help wipe out the stigma of mental illness

8:33 PM,
Apr. 29, 2013

Written by

SHEILA SCHUSTER, Ph.D.

Mental illness has been in the media and on the lips of more Americans in the past four months than at any other time in our history. Unfortunately, shootings like those in Newtown have focused attention on violence and mental illness and stirred up the stigma that comes when people are misinformed and fearful.

Along with the demand for gun control has come a spate of stigmatizing comments about what effect mental illness has on the ability of individuals to run for public office and stigmatizing commercials like Nabisco's where the craving for Wheat Thins puts someone in a psychiatric ...